Well, Psalm 121. Psalm 121. Take your Bible. And we are working our way through all 150 of the Psalms. And we are in Psalm 121. This is a great little Psalm. It's only eight verses. It's not very long, but there is plenty to talk about. So I want to preach the word faithfully and accurately and briefly as I can to prepare us for our prayer meeting. I titled the message tonight, The Traveler's Guide. The Traveler's Guide. The Lord, your keeper, calming your concerns. Psalm 121 from the God-inspired title, which reads, A Song of a Sense. Verse 1. I will lift up my eyes to the mountains. From where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil. He will keep your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever. I want you to know, church family, that this is a great psalm for you and me as we travel through life. I want to begin by telling you about a man who gave his life to go to Africa. He gave his life to go to Africa, even going through the hardships of a wild lion that came from the bush. and ripped open his flesh and broke his arm. He knew that God was in control, even amid the troubles and the difficulties of life. He knew that God was his helper. He knew that God was his keeper. And he was the missionary David Livingstone. He was the missionary to Africa in the 1800s. It happened that one night after a missions conference, in the morning hours, he ended his time with his parents in the family worship gathering. and they read Psalm 121 together. This was one of his favorite Psalms. It was his traveling companion as he would embark upon the future missionary journey, the expedition of going to Africa to take the gospel to the lost. David Livingstone would say things like this, as for me, I am determined to go to Africa and I'm gonna open up Africa. or I will perish." Livingstone's passion could really be summed up in these words that he wrote, it is my desire to show my attachment to the cause of Christ who died for me by devoting my life fully to his service. What a great heart ambition. My Savior gave himself fully for me. I want to give myself fully for him. Well, as he sailed for Africa, as a traveler, he knew that his help would come from the Lord. He knew that the Lord was the maker of the heaven and the earth, as our psalm says, and as the Nicene Creed declares about God the Father, he is the maker of heaven and earth. David Livingstone went through life and the difficulties of life knowing that the same God who keeps Israel is the same God who will watch over him. He knew that the faithful covenant God of Israel is his keeper and he is his shade. He knew that God would protect him from all evil. because that's a promise from God Almighty in the psalm right here before us. And I want to encourage you tonight, church family, I want you to know this is your God. What I am going to preach for the next little bit to prepare us for the prayer meeting, I want you to make it personal. This is your God. This is not just some deity or some God far out there and distant. This is your God. You can call him my God, my guide, my keeper, my savior. I do want to remind you, according to the Bible, God the Father is the one who guards his own people. to the very end. We know that from the words of Jude. In Jude, verse 24, now to God who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy. We know that Jesus, by the almighty power of Jesus, he will keep you all the way until heaven. He will guard your soul. John chapter 17, verse 12, Jesus prayed, while I was with them, I was keeping them in your name. The name which you have given me, I guarded them and none of them perished. Even the Holy Spirit is also God who keeps us and preserves his people. To the end, Ephesians 1, we read in verse 13 that after listening to the gospel, we have believed and we are sealed, we are protected with the Holy Spirit of promise. Christian, you have the triune God protecting you here tonight. You have the Almighty Father, you have the glorious Son, and you have the indwelling Holy Spirit guarding you, watching you, traveling with you, and he promises to you that there will be no evil that will befall you in life. In your notes, I give you these little checkpoints at the very beginning just by way of introduction. I just want to kind of read through it briefly to set the stage because the key word of Psalm 121 is the word watch or guard or keep. God watches his people. And how does he watch over his people? In your notes, you see it there. He watches over his people sovereignly. He's the maker of heaven and earth. He watches over you attentively. He never sleeps. He watches over you personally because he is your keeper. He watches over you continually. The sun will not smite you by day nor the moon by night. He watches over you lovingly because he travels with you. He loves you. He cares for you. He watches over you protectively. He will guard your soul. And he watches over you eternally from this time forth and forevermore. And he watches over you faithfully, faithfully. I want you to hear tonight, Christian, that this is your traveling psalm. This is your psalm through life. You could call it the traveler's guidebook through life. And whatever hills and bumps and trials and hardships may come on your journey through life, Psalm 121 can be your traveling guidebook. It can travel with you. It can help you. It can refocus you. It can give you the comfort that you need. I wanna remind you of last week, we looked at the Psalms, Psalms 120 to 134, which is really a cluster of Psalms that we call the Songs of Ascent, and that's the title to these Psalms. It's kind of like a mini hymn book within the larger hymn book of the Book of Psalms. And here's the context, the Jewish people, would travel to Jerusalem three times a year from their village, from their home, for the three pilgrimage festivals. Passover, Feast of Tabernacles, and the Feast of Booze. And these were like the playlist. little hymn book that they would travel with, that they would sing on their way as they would approach Mount Zion and the temple in Jerusalem to worship the Lord. Last week, remember we looked at Psalm 120, which is all about leaving a hostile community. I feel like an alien in our world. I don't fit in. I'm a follower of Christ who is the light of the world, but I'm living in a dark world and I don't fit in here. The things the world loves, I don't love. And the things that the world celebrates, I don't celebrate. I just feel like an alien. I feel like a stranger here. And that's how the Jewish pilgrims felt, is they would leave their homes and they would embark on the journey to Jerusalem. Well, now we come to Psalm 121 tonight. 121 is the psalmist now on the road, but he's lifting up his eyes and he thinks, oh no, look at all of those hills. Look at all of the danger. Look at all of the unknown. Look at all of the difficulties that lie ahead of me. Who's going to help me on my journey there? We're going to look at that tonight. The main point of the psalm, it's right there in the box in your outline, the whole sermon, and one little point is this. God is your keeper on your pilgrimage. You're not your own keeper. I'm not your ultimate keeper. God is your keeper. I believe Psalm 121 is like a personal counseling paradigm for the traveling pilgrim through life. Now, if you look in your notes, there are two simple points. It's a wonderful Psalm. It's very simple, very, very simple. In verses one and two, it's my question. Who's my helper? Maybe in modern vernacular, how in the world am I going to do this? How am I going to get through this? How am I going to get through life? How am I going to handle it? How am I going to tackle it? How am I going to conquer? How am I going to do this? It's way bigger than I can handle. And then, I will share in just a moment. The second point is my counsel. Yahweh is my keeper. So, let's begin with the question in verses 1 and 2. You can imagine it, can't you? In your mind's eye, somebody leave, they leave their village, they leave their community, they got their bag packed. And they're on the road, and maybe they come from the north. Maybe they come from the south. Maybe they come from the desert. Maybe they come from the hills out the west by the Mediterranean, and they're going to come to Jerusalem. But if you're going to come to Jerusalem, you're going to go through hills. You're going to go through mountains, because you always ascend up to go to Jerusalem. How am I going to do that? How am I going to be safe on the journey ahead of me." Look at verse one, I lift up my eyes to the mountains. From where shall my help come? Verse two, my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. You know, visiting Israel is such a wonderful thing. It's such an insightful thing because when you know the geography and the topography, the land of Israel, it helps here. Because when you approach Jerusalem from nearly every direction, you're going uphill. That's why they often say, I'm going up to Jerusalem. I'm ascending to Jerusalem. There was always a sense of fear and dread and anxiety traveling through mountains, not only because Jerusalem is 2,600 feet above sea level, but mountains is dangerous. Thieves, robbers, bandits, wild animals, the unknown. You don't know what's ahead of you when you are leaving your home and you're traveling on the hills and through the mountains to Zion. Maybe you can relate to that. You look ahead and you think, oh my, look at those mountains. It's the danger of the unknown. Oh, it's the danger of the predators. Am I gonna make it safely? How am I gonna handle it? Am I gonna make it okay? Who's gonna come to my aid when difficulty assails me? That's the question in verse one. Who is going to be my help? And I love verse two. Do you see it there in your Bible? My help is from, and look carefully at the word, notice it's all capitals. It's the personal covenant name of God, Yahweh. My help comes from Jehovah, from Yahweh. Only God can be my helper because he covers every realm in existence. Why should I fear the mountains when the maker of those mountains is my God? Why should I fear the trials ahead of me when the designer of those trials is with me? Why should I fear the hardships when the designer of those hardships says that he's for me? Oh, the Lord. The Lord is my helper. He made heaven and earth. Real quick, you have your Bible open to Psalm 121. Just turn a little bit to the right and go to Isaiah chapter 42. And I want you to do a little journey with me for a minute. Let's learn, who is this Jehovah? Who is this Yahweh God? What kind of God is this who says he will be your helper? Okay, Isaiah 42. Let's begin in verse 8. I am the LORD, all caps, Jehovah. I am the LORD, that is my name. I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven images. Verse 9, behold, the former things have come to pass. Now I declare new things before they spring forth. I proclaim them to you. Verse 13, the Lord will go forth like a warrior. He will arouse his zeal like a man of war. He will utter a shout. Yes, he will raise a war cry. He will prevail against his enemies. Wow, my God knows the future? And he will prevail against all enemies? Look at the next chapter, Isaiah 43. Look at Isaiah 43, verse 11. I, even I, am Jehovah the Lord, and there is no Savior besides me. It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, and there is no strange God among you. Sir, you are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and I am God. Even from eternity I am he, and there is none who can deliver out of my hand. I act, and who can reverse it? Wow, what a God. What a God who is your helper, who says, I act. Who can reverse what I have done in my powerful hand? Look at chapter 44, beginning in verse six. Thus says Jehovah, Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first and I am the last and there is no God besides me. Who is like me? Let him proclaim and declare it. Let him recount it to me in order from the time that I established the ancient nation and let them declare to them the things that are coming, even the events that are gonna take place. Don't tremble. Don't be afraid. Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? Or is there any other rock?" I love this. God says, I know of none. What a God! Oh, I lift up my eyes to the hills, and where's my help gonna come from? Here's the answer. My help comes from this God, this Jehovah, the covenant-keeping God. One more, look at Isaiah 45, beginning in verse 5. I am Jehovah, the Lord. There is no other. Besides me, there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known me, that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides me. I am the Lord. There is no other." This is your God. This is your helper. the one who created from the beginning and spans all the way to the end, and he made the heavens and the earth, and he is the one who is Lord over all, and there are no rivals. He is your God. Now, let me ask you a question. Think about your pilgrim journey. Think about your pilgrimage that you're on. You need help? You lift up your eyes and you look ahead and you see the unknown, you see the fearful, you see the uncertainties ahead, you see the unfamiliar, you see the worries, you see the things ahead of you, and you wonder, who is gonna see me through all of this? And the answer from God through the psalmist, my help comes from the Lord. Now, if you look carefully at verse two, back to the psalm, back to our psalm, verse two. He adds one qualifying phrase, one descriptive phrase about Jehovah. And in the Hebrew, it refers to an ongoing, timeless action. Our God, Jehovah, is the one who is the creator of the heavens and the earth. He made all things. He upholds all things. He's in control of all things. He's actively governing all things. That's the idea. Why fear? Why should I worry when I have the Maker of the heavens and the earth as my helper? As my helper. This is why the creeds confess at the very beginning, we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, and here's our biblical phrase, the Maker of the heavens and the earth. Church family, be encouraged by this. The question The question, who's gonna help me? Who's gonna get me through life? How am I gonna do this? Point two, in your notes, is my counsel. My counsel. Point number two, I have my question, but now I have my counsel. Yahweh is my keeper. Now, if you notice, in verses one and two, everything is my, I, I lift up, my eyes. Who's gonna help me? The Lord is my helper, my keeper. Everything switches now in verses three to eight to you, you, you. Somebody is talking to you. And I am convinced, I think it's probably the psalmist counseling his own heart. He becomes his own biblical counselor. He becomes his own helper. Who's gonna help me? I'll tell you he's gonna help you. I know exactly who's gonna help you. He's counseling himself. And the key word It occurs eight times in these verses is the word, keeper, keeper, keeper, watcher, watcher, keeper, guard. I want to let you know, this psalm is filled with promises from God. You can show God his own signature in the promises and pray it back to God. Lord, here's what you promised. Here's what you say that you will do. What a promise from a kind God. It should woo our hearts to a good, loving God. Look at verse 3 and 4. God is alert. He will not allow your foot to slip. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. In other words, Saul, Saul, why are you afraid? Don't you know that your God stands as the watchman and he's on high alert? He's on high alert. He doesn't slumber. He doesn't sleep. In fact, I love the Hebrew word here for slumber. It means to get drowsy. It means to get tired. It means to be droopy-eyed. One translator says, God will not doze off. You do, and I do, but your God doesn't. When you're sleeping, your God is watching. When you are fearful, Your God is alert. He is with you. He is your guard. His eye is on you. His focus is on you. His attention is on you. His loving care is on you. His heart is for you. And as you travel step by step in the journey through life, your covenant-keeping God is on high alert for you. What a God, what a hope, what comfort, what a Savior we have. Not only is He alert, verses 3 and 4, He guards you, He watches you, He doesn't sleep. But now in verses 5 to 8, He's your protector. Look at verse 5, and I love the images here, and you got to kind of get your sandals dusty a little bit and travel with the pilgrim, because this is the language of somebody outdoors. Verse 5, the Lord is your keeper. He is your shade. You know, you're walking in that hot Mediterranean sun and you'll take any shade you can get. The Lord is my shade at the right hand. Verse 6, the sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil. He will keep your soul. The language is God protecting you. He's your comfort. He will not allow you to be hurt or harmed. It's images of a traveling pilgrim. The sun, anything in the daytime is not gonna hurt me. The night, nothing in the nighttime is gonna hurt me. In fact, according to verse seven, I love this promise. I go to it a lot. Verse seven, the Lord will protect you from all evil. He will guard your soul. You say, Jeff, how many martyrs are there? There are so many people that are not guarded from evil. There are all kinds of hardships that happen to God's people. Fair enough. There are difficulties that happen. However, verse 7 is a promise from God. And what I think verse 7 teaches, listen carefully, This is big God theology. That God will overturn every situation in your life, every circumstance in your life, listen, to always be for your good. You will always be for your good. Because it's handcrafted by a loving Father. It is hand-designed by a loving Redeemer for your good, for your growth, for your godliness, for your maturity. You say, yeah, but David Livingstone died as a missionary. That's right. But that was part of the loving plan of God. Even all of the hardships along the way, God can say, there is nothing bad about this because it's working out my perfect plan for your good. It's for good. David knew this and David believed it. You remember Psalm 23, when David said this in verse four, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Pauline theology is the same thing. Romans 8, verse 28. We know that God is working all things together for good. That means every situation, every moment, every encounter, every circumstance, God is working it for good. I may not see how it all fits together. You may not know how it all fits together. but we walk by faith, trusting in a good God who knows all things, who says, no evil will befall you. Nothing will harm you. Now, from our perspective, it might seem like it harms us, but from our heavenly Father's perspective, it is all good. It is all good. It says in verse seven, he will keep your soul. You will live unharmed in your soul, and God will bring you safely to his heavenly home. I want to show you this. Let's go to Paul's letter to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Will you go with me there? And I want to take you to a place in Paul's life where Paul is really struggling. Paul is writing to the Corinthian church, he's writing from a missionary journey, and he just feels broken, he feels beat down, he feels weak, he feels like he just can't go on. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not despairing. We are persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed. We are always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. We who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus's sake so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you. I mean, Paul is going through the ringer here. Verse 13, but having the same spirit of faith, according to what was written, I believed, therefore I spoke. We also believe, therefore we also speak. Knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sake so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. But though the outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day. Check out verse 17. For momentary light affliction. is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Oh, church family, the Lord is a good guard. He is a good helper. We can say with Paul, I feel struck down sometimes, I feel discouraged sometimes, I feel beat down, but I'm not destroyed. We carry around the death of Jesus. We are suffering in our lives so that the life of Jesus may be proclaimed and lifted up. What does Paul say? He says, even though the outer man is wasting away, the inner man is being renewed day by day. We have an eternal weight of glory that lies ahead. Christian, may I just encourage you back to our psalm here. As you're traveling through life, traveling through life, As you go in and you go out, as you begin your day, as you end your day, as you go to meetings and come home at the end of the day from meetings, as you begin a project and you conclude a project, all the different things, as you begin a class and finish a class, as you write a project and conclude that project, and all the things that come your way in life, when you're young, when you're older, when you're plenteous, when you're in need, when you're in danger and you're in safety, The psalm ends, verse 8, by saying, the Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Church family, let me encourage you with these brief words. At the end of your outline there, you see these four brief points. Because God is your keeper, because he is your keeper, number one, you can trust God through the entire course of life. Trust him. Number two, you can know that you are immortal. until God calls you home. You know what that means? You can't prolong your life, nor can you shorten your life at all. Different than God's perfect plan and timetable for you. You are immortal until God calls you home. So live courageously for him. Number three, you can rest in the grace of God, knowing that God is your keeper. And he keeps your soul. And then number four, you can marvel that the God of heaven and earth loves you. So here's one personal application that I have thought to myself that I'll share even with you tonight. So Psalm 121 teaches, while I live, I want to live with all of my might. live with all of my might. I don't want to be slack. I want to be strong. I want to be steadfast. I want to be immovable. I want to be bold. I want to be unflinching for God. So, Christian, pilgrim, travel. Travel heavenward. Travel heavenward with a confident trust in the Lord because he is your keeper. I think a fitting way to end is to kind of circle back where we began. I began with David Livingstone, but let me talk about another man who had a guidebook as he traveled. And he is the great John Wesley. John Wesley, the 18th century evangelist who lived in England. Estimates are from historians that he traveled more than 250,000 miles on horseback. I mean, that would be like circling the globe 10 times. Often riding on his horse, he would rise before dawn, he would pray on his knees, he would read his Bible, he would mount his horse, and he would travel to a village to teach and preach. And he would preach in towns and city squares and fields and farms. He would preach in coal mines. Wherever there was a living person, he would go and he would preach the gospel to them. He often preached two or three or four times a day, traveling on horseback. Historians tell us that he prayed every day as he traveled. At each hour, even on horseback, he would pause and pray and thank God for the blessings of life. He would often use the time while reading his horse. That's amazing. He would read his Bible while riding his horse. And he would often say, I'm a man of one book. I want to be a man of one book. And I think, what? But what calmed John Wesley? What gave him the fire? What was the traveling guidebook that kept him through the dangers and the difficulties and the discouragements and the uncertainties? What kept him going? It was that Yahweh, the Lord who made heaven and earth, is with him. And by faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. You can have this God to be your God as well. You can say, He is my God. He is my keeper. He is my shade. And He is my Jehovah. May that be true of all of us tonight. Amen. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the power of Psalm 121. Thank you that as we travel and as we journey through life, that you have given to us this needed Psalm.